Miško Jovanović
Miško Jovanović (Serbo-Croatian: Мишко Јовановић; December 19, 1919 - March 26, 2001) was a Serbian Yugoslav soldier and partisan fighter who fought in World War II. Early life and family Jovanović was born in the village of Vladimirici in Serbia on December 19, 1919. His family was not especially well-to-do but they were not poor. His father, Mihajlo Stefan, a Serb, owned and operated a hardware store along with his mother, Ljubica Vesna, who was half-Serb and half-Croat. In 1937, he decided to join the Royal Yugoslav Army. Military service World War II Jovanović was initially placed in the reserves of the army, where he was specially trained as an officer. In 1939, he was given command of a platoon in the 1st Battalion, 112th Infantry Regiment. The army was in relatively poor shape with regards to equipment and organization, and the multi-ethnic nature of the country meant that the Serb Jovanović did not always get along with the Slovene and German soldiers he commanded. Despite evident and well-founded fears of Axis invasion, the Yugoslav army was not ordered mobilized until April 3, 1941. Lieutenant Jovanović and his men were called to the northern border of the country. There, they were organized as part of the 38th Infantry Division Dravska and were ordered to reinforce the defensive line near Dravograd on the Drava River. On April 6, 1941, the Axis, spearheaded by the German army, launched their invasion of Yugoslavia. The German advance was rapid and relentless, and Lieutenant Jovanović's men struggled to hold the line. They held back the Germans for two days, but as the position became untenable, they fell back behind the Kupa River and retreated further over the next few days. The 38th Division offered a little resistance to the Germans, but the army was rapidly disintegrating through a combination of enemy attacks and fifth column activity and was soon encircled. Jovanović tried to lead a breakout attempt, but this was a failure. Less than a week after the invasion began, Yugoslavia surrendered. Jovanović at first wanted to keep fighting, but he and his men surrendered to the Germans when it became clear that further resistance was futile. In June, after two months in a German POW camp, Jovanović was parolled. He went to live in Belgrade, initially intent on simply keeping his head down and living life as normal under the German occupation. However, the Communist Party had been planning an uprising throughout Serbia, and in July, groups of partisans began to take action against the occupiers. Not wanting to join the Communists, Jovanović instead joined a royalist and Serb nationalist Chetnik detachment, taking part in sabotage activities against German military installations. In August, Jovanović left the city and fled west with a group of other Chetniks, joining the Jadar detachment in western Serbia. He took part in the Battle of Loznica, driving out the Germans and liberating the town. Linking up with Communist partisans, the resistance fighters attacked the town of Banja Koviljača, which took them several days of hard fighting against Germans and Croatian NDH collaborators to secure. Small raids and other actions in the countryside continued throughout the month, until it became clear that the Germans would soon crack down on the uprising. In November, Jovanović was ordered by the central Chetnik command to turn on the partisans and fight alongside the Germans. Refusing to do so, he deserted his detachment and offered his services to the local partisan commander. As a member of an Užice-based partisan group, Jovanović's loyalties were initially suspect but he soon proved himself a capable fighter, motivated primarily out of opposition to the Germans than any political movement. As a part of the Axis's Operation Uzice, meant to clear the partisans from Serbia, a large group of Chetniks attacked the town. Jovanović played a part in driving them off, but the partisans were forced to retreat as a large German force moved against them. The partisans moved west into Bosnia, establishing a base in the town of Rudo. In December 1941, the partisans formed the 1st Proletarian Brigade, in which Jovanović was appointed a Captain. Marching out of Rudo, the partisans smashed through Italian forces before establishing their base at a more permanent location in eastern Bosnia and dug in for the winter. The Germans, not content to let the partisans continue their operations, launched an offensive, codenamed Operation Southeast Croatia, which included NDH and Italian troops, to encircle the detachments. In January 1942, the enemy forces attacked, driving back the detachments guarding the perimeter. Captain Jovanović and the rest of the partisan regulars fought to hold back the Germans, but the situation was quickly deteriorating and a general withdrawl was ordered southward. The 1st Proletarian Brigade crossed the icy Mount Igman plateau, an action which cost many lives but saved the formation from certain destruction. They reestablished headquarters in Foča, where the partisans would remain throughout the winter months. In March, the German, Italian, NDH, and Chetnik forces began massing for another offensive operation against the partisans. The partisans lost many fighters to desertion, many of whom joined the Chetniks. In April, the enemy launched Operation Trio, and the 1st Brigade came under heavy assault. Counterattacking, Captain Jovanović led his men against the Chetniks, throwing them back in disarray. Holding off the German-Italian-NDH advance, the partisans evacuated Foča in May and retreated southwest. In June and July, the Italians began their own offensive which pushed the partisans out of eastern Herzegovina entirely, and more losses to Chetnik desertion occurred. After a reorganization period, they shifted their operational area to western Bosnia. From July into January 1943, Jovanović and his fighters took part in numerous raids on enemy-held villages and towns, killing Germans and NDH and destroying their supplies. In November 1942, the brigade was reorganized as a part of the 1st Proletarian Division. Beginning in January 1943, the Axis occupying forces commenced yet another major operation to destroy the partisans. Operation Weiss was broken into two categories, each targeting a specific partisan-held area, one after the other. After the first offensive, the 1st Proletarian Division was ordered to prepare for an immediate counterattack. The assault began in February, and Jovanović and his men drove the Italians back over a great amount of territory, but their advance petered out due to lack of mutual allied support. The enemy launched the second phase of the operation, and the 1st Division fought to hold out against the NDH and Germans at the Ivan Sedlo pass, but a substantial force of the enemy managed to break through. Leaving the pass, Jovanović's unit counterattacked along the Neretva River at Gornji Vakuf, pushing the Germans back from February into March. Ordered to force a crossing over the river to allow the partisan army to retreat, Jovanović's men crossed over and defeated the Chetniks on the west bank of the Drina River, crossing it too in April. The partisans had been defeated, but the army remained strong and was able to escape intact. The Axis forces in Yugoslavia were intent on destroying the partisan central command, and in May 1943, began Operation Schwarz. The partisans soon found themselves encircled, besieged on all sides by German, Italian, NDH, and Bulgarian troops. With the pocket closing, Captain Jovanović led his men in a desperate counterattack which smashed through the German lines in a breakout over the Sutjeska River, costing the partisans heavy losses but saving the army from destruction. In a series of limited offensives in the wake of the enemy operation, Jovanović took part in the capture of the NDH-held town of Vlasenica in June. In July, his unit fought in the Battle of Zvornik, capturing the vital port town for the partisans. These battles saved the partisan movement as an effective fighting force and cemented their image as skilled and motivated soldiers. In September, the 1st Division led the advance into Split, a formerly Italian-held city which came under partisan control when the local commanders joined the allies after Italy switched sides. This did not last long, however, for the Germans attacked the city in force and Jovanović and the partisans were forced into a retreat as Split came under Croatian control. In October and later November, the partisans launched two raids on Travnik in central Bosnia. In December, they were forced to retreat from Livno as the Germans attacked in Operation Ziethen, and the partisans raided the city later in the month in retaliation. For a week in January 1944, the 1st Division fought off German attacks during an enemy offensive known as Operation Waldrausch. In May, they raided Mrkonjić Grad. During this period, the division joined the main partisan force around the town of Drvar in western Bosnia. On May 25, 1944, the Axis initiated Operation Rösselsprung, a surprise attack on Drvar with the objective of eliminating partisan leader Josip Broz Tito. Captain Jovanović himself was temporarily in the town for an army staff meeting, and when German paratroopers attacked, the partisans fended off their advance and made it possible for Tito to escape in time. Jovanović returned to his unit and the 1st Division met the German ground assault. Jovanović and his men held off the Germans' nearly constant attacks for three days, allowing the command to reorganize and repulse the offensive throughout June. Operation Draufgänger began in July, as the Germans prepared to force the partisans from their line on the Lim River. After the partisans were pushed back, Jovanović's men were called up to counterattack. Inflicting heavy losses, they broke through the German forces into Serbia in August and fought back the German counteroffensive, Operation Rübezahl, in Montenegro. Throughout the coming months, the 1st Division prepared for the drive on Belgrade to liberate the whole of Serbia. They captured various towns and cities from the German occupiers, and coordinated with Allied Soviet and Bulgarian forces who were now in the area. In September 1944, the Allies attacked. Jovanović and his men fought through German defenses outside the city and the surrounding areas, and by October, were set to capture the capital itself. Along with the Soviet Army, the partisans broke through into Belgrade and finally captured the city before the end of the month. Chasing the retreating Germans, the partisans retook Srem and continued their advance. The going was slow, fighting against well-fortified enemy positions and defensive lines. For Jovanović's partisans, whose tactics previously revolved around guerrilla warfare, this new type of fighting was hard to master. Nevertheless, they continued the attack in the Syrmia region from November into December, when the German line stabilized. In January 1945, the Germans launched a sizeable counterattack which forced the 1st Division back over the ground they had previously fought to win. For the next few months, few actions were taken. In April, however, the partisans broke through at the front of the German line and advanced rapidly, destroying various German forces and liberating much occupied territory. The 1st Division took Pleternica, and in May, Vrbovec fell. Captain Jovanović and his men ended the war in northern Coratia, as the war in Europe ended on May 8, 1945. For the rest of the month, they mopped up those NDH and other collaborationist forces who refused to surrender. Informbiro, the Suez Crisis, and the end of service Captain Jovanović remained in the service of the new Yugoslav People's Army after the war, where he was based in Belgrade. After the political and ideological split between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, the country was threatened both with internal warfare fomented by Stalinist Yugoslavs, and invasion by the Soviet Union. Jovanović performed his duty during this period, arresting suspected fifth columnists and helping to garrison the borders of the country against invasion, whether it would come from the western powers or the Soviets. In 1956, France, Britain, and Israel invaded the Suez canal zone in Egypt. While this had little bearing on Yugoslavia, the army was organizing a force to join UNEF (United Nations Emergency Force) which would restore peace in the area. Captain Jovanović was a part of this unit, and he took part in peacekeeping operations which saw the foreign powers evacuate the area. He stayed in the area from November until March 1957, when he returned to Yugoslavia. On January 11, 1961, Captain Miško Jovanović retired from military service. Personal life In 1947, he married Adrijana Konjović, a fellow partisan who had served under him in World War II. They had three children, Radoslav Jovanović, Nadja Jovanović, and Katya Jovanović. The couple lived in Voždovac in Belgrade for the rest of their lives. In 1999, Miško Jovanović was injured by a fragment by a NATO bomb. He never recovered, and the injury played a large part in his death on March 26, 2001. Views Before the war, Jovanović was fairly apolitical, but opposed Communism and supported the Yugoslav monarchy. In 1941, when he joined the partisan forces out of a commitment to fight against the German occupiers, his ideals began slowly changing. He joined the Communist Party, though he remained a self-described "Yugoslav patriot". During the Cold War, Jovanović was a strong supporter of Josip Broz Tito's philosophies of third-way socialism between the west and the east. During the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, he advocated unity above all else, but as this view was quickly losing support, he argued for a peaceful withdrawl of those countries who wanted to secede. This, evidently, did not happen. Equipment During the invasion, and later during the partisan war, Jovanović used a Mauser M24 pattern bolt-action rifle and its M24/48 knife bayonet. He also used an FN M1910/22 semi-automatic pistol, and carried the Vasić M12 fragmentation grenade. Near the end of his military service, Jovanović used a PAP M59 Yugoslav copy of the Soviet SKS semi-automatic rifle. He also carried a Tokarev TT-33 pistol. Category:Soldiers in World War II Category:Yugoslav soldiers Category:Serbian soldiers